Madonna, Kreuzigung und Heilige

By 1496 Pinturicchio was famous for the walls he had frescoed in the Vatican for the Borgia pope, Alexander the Sixth, all gold and pattern and crowded ceremony. This altarpiece, made for the church of Santa Maria dei Fossi near Perugia, is the same hand working small and close. The Madonna sits enthroned among saints, the colours deep as jewels, every hem and halo tooled into the gold. It was painted not on a wooden panel but on canvas stretched over wood, which was unusual for an altar of this kind. Look at the tiny predella scenes along the base, the Annunciation and the Evangelists, worked almost like miniatures. This is the Umbrian manner at its most exact, from a painter who had just come home from decorating rooms for a pope.